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There are two kinds of jobs, but only one kind creates wealth. Unfortunately, we seldom think about where jobs or wealth come from, until they stop coming. Well, it's mostly sales jobs that create wealth, and not just for the salespeople or companies who benefit, but for everyone who's part of a free-market economy.

Arthur (Red) Motley, the late, great advertising salesman for Parade Magazine, put a finer point on the answer: Before wealth and jobs can be created, somebody has to sell something.

The more advertising Motley sold, the more new production was required, and thus, the more new jobs were created. No politician in Washington can do better.

THE SOURCE OF WEALTH IS celebrated by those who bring it into the world; the entrepreneurs who sign the front of the paychecks, manage the payroll, buy equipment and services, and give birth to new enterprises. They're very different from those who kiss babies and tax or regulate wealth creation.

The less said in political company about the realities of economic procreation, the better. Wealth and profit in government circles are dirty words. What many in government don't realize is that private jobs fund the public good and public works. However, few of the direct beneficiaries will admit this fact.

Spending one's life bringing real goods and services into the marketplace and selling them at a price greater than their cost creates the wealth of our nation. Yet it is rarely referred to as public service. Even less honored is the management of the process, especially when jobs are sacrificed to maintain profits. Nevertheless, eliminating jobs is a key to creating wealth. Redeploying assets is what creates the new jobs that continue a cycle of new wealth creation.

Government does not understand the creative economic cycle. Officials try to "save" jobs by confiscating wealth. Even when they do "invest" the wealth of others to do things they deem worthy, they are most concerned with perpetuating their tenure in office, not with enriching the nation.

Jobs bills that substitute wealth-confiscating jobs for the private sector's wealth-creating jobs have held us in the economic doldrums.

Meanwhile, government's long-term mismanagement of the home-mortgage market is the root cause of the economic disaster we are now weathering. It would have been long gone by now, had it not been deemed a crisis not to be wasted.

Thus, our nation's bureaucrats stagger from one misguided economic adventure to another. Their attempts at partnering with the private sector are naive at best. At worst, they create conditions hazardous to free markets: banks too big to fail, mortgage-guaranty companies too big to succeed, automobile companies in thrall to unions, green enterprises born to fail, and so on.

Those trained in the law, politics, legislation, and rule-making seek popular approval, poll numbers, and re-election. That's why they create not jobs, but subsidies, guarantees and tax credits. These are usually economic shots in the dark, each one the stunted brainchild of crony capitalism.

From printing and giving away money at the Federal Reserve to giving away cash for old automobiles and old automobile companies, politicians may perpetuate their own careers. But these misconceived attempts at wealth creation will continue to keep those who really create wealth on the economic sidelines indefinitely.

WE SHOULD LAUGH at the absurdity of the claims for windmills, battery breakthroughs, and solar this or that, even though leaders of both parties deliver them with straight faces.

When those who understand accounting run the numbers on these unreal propositions, they come up with unreal numbers.

The most reliable number on the growth of our economy is the gross domestic product. When that begins to show a meaningful, sustained movement, that's an indication that businesses have once again accepted the risks required to gain the rewards of expansion. It also means that the creation of wealth is once again on the move.

Momentum, trends, leading indicators, new unemployment applications, and new jobs created tell us that things are on the mend. They show that the economy is indeed breathing, but there is a long way between respiration and the restoration of an up-and-running economic engine.

The U.S. government has gummed up the most powerful wealth-creating machine we have, and it's now running on idle. Yet all of its moving parts are sound. And so (with the few minor exceptions of businesses laboring under the most oppressive regulations or controls), the whole engine should be able to return to high speed and high efficiency in a very short period of time. This can only happen once the private sector feels it's regaining control of its destiny.

Those creating real wealth and raising productivity by eliminating obsolete jobs must hold on to their cash and keep their economic powder dry, until the regulatory storm of health care, environmental regulation, energy independence, and the next economic fantasy (as yet unannounced) passes over.

Eventually, these subsidized fantasy projects will enter the dustbin of history, and human progress will resume, driven as always by those who make the products, deliver the services, and sell the advertising.

The U.S. is the greatest economic power in history, and the most adaptable political power. And our political-correction process, more popularly known as elections, has begun once again. When it's over, those creating wealth will be able to get back to work again.

For a while, that is—until the next political class gets going. And then, as our entrepreneurs know all too well, this costly on-the-job economic training cycle begins all over again.

JACK FALVEY operates MakingTheNumbers.com from Londonderry, N.H., and is an adjunct faculty member at Boston College and the University of Massachusetts campus in Boston.